Flashback Friday: Comparing Sampras-Bastl to Nadal-Rosol

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Flashback Friday: Comparing Sampras-Bastl to Nadal-Rosol

By Chris Oddo

Photo Credit: AP Photo

(June 29, 2012)—Lukas Rosol's epic upset of Rafael Nadal on Centre Court yesterday marks the ten-year anniversary of another Wimbledon shocker: George Bastl's five-set second-round defeat of seven-time Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras on the old Court No. 2 (also known as the graveyard of champions) in 2002.

Each upset was remarkable, and each sent shockwaves pulsating throughout the tennis world, but inquiring minds want to know: Which astonishing upset was bigger? Which jaw-dropping send-off caused more tears of anguish, groans of despair, and sleepless evenings of gutwrenching agony from the fallen?

The truth is, we'll never know, but for my money, Lukas Rosol's near-perfect slaying of Rafael Nadal on Centre Court is the biggest, baddest upset I've ever seen.

Of course, when Bastl took out Sampras, Pistol Pete had already been crowned the King of Grass. Sampras was a seven-time Wimbledon champion and that alone made his second-round vanquishing worthy of “epic“ status. But keep in mind: Sampras was also past his prime in 2002, as his world ranking of 13 at the time attests. The then-30-year-old legend had been upset by Roger Federer in the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2001, and as the 2002 event rolled around, there was the sinking feeling across tennis circles that Pete's magic was rapidly vanishing.

Bastl's upset over Sampras, while monumental for many reasons (Bastl, like Rosol was a virtual unknown and had only one Wimbledon win on his resume), was more a product of Sampras's deteriorating game than Bastl's otherworldliness on that day. Sampras served a paltry 8 aces and 10 doubles on the day, and though he desperately tried to rally after falling two sets down, the tired, doleful champion fell short in the end.

“He spent two and a half sets moving as if he had concrete in the soles of his Nikes,“ wrote Selena Roberts in the New York Times afterwards, “botching volleys fielded behind the service line, too far back to do any damage.”

Not the case with Rafael Nadal, who remains--in spite of his No. 2 ranking--the most indomitable figure in the sport. Even when he’s playing bad at Slams, the indefatigable Nadal is the cockroach that you can step on but never kill.

But that point is moot because Nadal wasn’t playing bad against Rosol. That’s what makes Rosol’s upset all the more astonishing, and it’s also what made the match so compelling. The inspired play of each pushed the other to loftier tennis.

Rosol's scintillating trumping of Nadal was a more epic encounter than Bastl-Sampras because of the out-of-his-skull way that Rosol played, the frenzied Centre Court atmosphere (under a roof for set five), and the fact that Nadal, a hungry champion in the prime of his career and fresh off his 11th Grand Slam title, was doing everything in his power to avoid the loss.

There wasn’t a bad knee or a bad mindset. Nadal was all-good yesterday and he still went down. Rosol, who had lost in the first round of Wimbledon qualifying in each of the last five years, played Nadal as excellently as is humanly possible yesterday, and Nadal still elevated his game enough to nearly keep the zoning Czech from his destiny.

And yet, as the pressure mounted and the roar of the shocked Centre Court crowd grew, Rosol got it done. His performance wasn’t just brilliant--it was bionic; futuristic; part terminator, part gladiator.

It was like something from a sci-fi story. We kept waiting for Rosol’s serving arm to fall off and lay there on the grass, sputtering as severed wires caught fire.

As shocking as the Sampras-Bastl upset was in 2002, in 2012 I think we may have gotten the upset to end all upsets.

I’ll be watching ten years from now, but I won’t be expecting anything better.